I did not inform police about boat Kuber,says a top cop

He,however,did not assign any reason for not informing the city police patrolling boat about Kuber,found abandoned four nautical miles off Mumbai harbour a day after the 26/11 terror strikes.

The witness said,on November 27 last year,he was posted in main control room as Additional Commissioner of Police and had received information about ‘Kuber’ which revealed that its navigator had been killed and his body was lying in the same boat. The terrorists had reached the coast by inflatable boat.

“I passed on this information to Coast Guard and asked them to search the boat,” the witness told Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam and added that this has been entered in station diary of the control room.

Sub-inspector Padmakar Dhole,who also deposed as a witness,told judge M L Tahaliyani that after conducting an inquiry he had lodged an FIR against prime accused Ajmal Kasab and ten others for hijacking M V Kuber and murdering its navigator.

Dhole said he lodged the FIR on the basis of statement of Kasab in which he had admitted to have killed the vessel’s navigator after “Namaz hours” on day of the terror strikes.

However,when cross-examined by defence lawyer Abbas Kazmi,the witness said Kasab’s statement did not mention that the murder had been committed after “Namaz hours”.

Another witness,Rajendra Bhosale,identified Faheem Ansari in the court saying he had helped him (Faheem) in getting accommodation in the city few months before the terror strikes.

Bhosale told prosecutor Nikam that Faheem had identified himself as Sahil Pawaskar and he had taken him (Faheem) to the landlady Shantiben who gave him accommodation on rent of Rs 3,000 per month. After staying there for some time,Faheem suddenly disappeared without collecting Rs 60,000 deposit.